Dowagiac family grateful for help in fire's aftermath

Blaze kills one of two cats, but no one else injured.

Blaze kills one of two cats, but no one else injured.

July 26, 2008|By CAROL DRAEGER Tribune Staff Writer

SISTER LAKES Â? High gas prices and a medical emergency forced a Dowagiac family to move to a relativeÂ?s rent-free house for awhile until they could save money to move closer to their jobs in the Niles area. But after only a week into that money-saving strategy, the Hoy familyÂ?s plan went up in smoke.

A fire July 17 at their rental home gutted the Sister Lakes residence and killed one of the family's two cats.

Tonia Hoy said the blaze started when a faulty air conditioner unit shorted out near the living room. Hoy said she had just left the home at 8:30 a.m. that morning with the couple's five children while her husband, who works a night shift, was sleeping in a downstairs bedroom.

"He woke up from the smoke detectors but he almost got burned," Tonia Hoy, 24, said of her husband, Brian.

"When he went out into the living room, it was engulfed in flames," she said.

Brian, 27, said he is thankful the fire didn't start at night when the couple's children, all under the age of 6, would have been sleeping.

"It's a blessing they weren't in there," Brian Hoy said.

He escaped, wearing only the shorts he was sleeping in.

"There was no time to grab anything," he said.

The family's other cat, Oreo, survived by jumping out an upstairs window.

"He was a brave little guy," Tonia Hoy said.

Since then the family has been living with Hoy's mother, from whom they had been renting the home that went up in flames. But Tonia Hoy said it's only temporary because their household is brimming with children and adults.

The family had originally been living in Dowagiac but when gas prices continued to soar Hoy said she and her husband couldn't keep making the commutes to their jobs plus pay their rent. In addition Tonia had a brief medical stint at a hospital around July 4, which also set the family back financially.

Tonia works in Niles at Rural King and Brian works in Edwardsburg at North American Forest Products.

"We were looking for a house in Niles or Edwardsburg," she said.

And to save money, Tonia's mother agreed to let the family live in a home she owns next to her residence so they could sock away cash for a down payment on another house.

"Now that's gone," Tonia Hoy said.

"It's put us more into a predicament. We have nowhere else to go."

Tonia Hoy said she hopes a "nice" landlord will step forward and allow the family to rent a three-bedroom home for about $600 a month.

Brian Hoy said he has been shocked by the outpouring of help the family has received so far. A few hours after the fire a trooper with the Michigan State Police shelled out $400 from his own pocket to help the family.

"He told me it was what God wanted," Hoy said about the trooper.

Brian Hoy's uncle works for Laidig Industrial Systems in Mishawaka.

When the company's owner found out about the family's plight, he gave them a check for $500, Brian Hoy said.

"Employees also chipped in," he said.

The outpouring of help from strangers in the community has been heartwarming for the family.

"ThatÂ?s whatÂ?s been keeping us going, because itÂ?s been hard,Â? Brian Hoy said.